Diego had always wanted to go to the Andes. Ever since he saw the movie *Alive*, based on the true story of a soccer team whose plane crashed in the South American mountain range, he had made it his life's goal to visit the region and harbored a morbid hope of coming across the frozen body of a mountaineer from a bygone era.
Diego also had a unique quality: he always managed to make his dreams come true. He wasn’t quite sure why, but he felt that if you wanted something badly enough and fought for it, life would eventually reward you by granting it to you. And to everyone’s surprise—including his own—one day he won the lottery and had enough money to fulfill one of his greatest dreams: traveling to the Andes.
After completing all the necessary preparations—such as obtaining a visa, undergoing medical exams, and purchasing travel insurance—he set off for his destination during the hottest time of year possible, partly to help him endure the cold he wasn’t accustomed to, and partly to increase his chances of coming across the body of a climber that the melting snow might have exposed.
For some strange reason, he had the idea of taking a selfie with him—or her—and posting it online if he achieved his goal, and since he always had this strange certainty that everything he dreamed of would come true, he set off for the Andes confident that this, too, would be granted to him.
Once in the Andes, he visited the site where the plane carrying that soccer team crashed—the team that was forced to eat their dead teammates to survive—and was able to camp and spend the night there.
The next morning, after watching the sunrise, he began his journey back, and suddenly, in the distance, he saw a path that seemed strangely familiar. Without really knowing why, but with a certainty that surprised him, he headed toward it as if he already knew it, and after following it for a while, he saw something sticking out of the snow.
Convinced that this was exactly what he expected to find—a frozen climber—he took out his camera, walked over, and snapped a selfie, without even glancing at the body first. When he checked the photo and prepared to upload it to Instagram, he noticed that the climber was dressed exactly like him. Puzzled, he stepped closer to take a closer look, and as he approached, he tripped over the head of another climber, causing him to stumble and fall, and to his surprise, just like the previous one, he was dressed exactly like him.
At that moment, he realized he was sinking into the snow and had nothing to hold onto to stop himself, except for the frozen body of the climber. In desperation, he stretched out an arm to try to reach him and managed only to grab one of the front pockets of his jacket, which, as he sank deeper and deeper, tore off, leaving him holding it in his hands, along with a half-frozen piece of paper that was inside.
Before he sank completely into the snow, he managed to read part of what he had written. “Name: Diego Stephens. Age: 25. Nationality: British. Blood type: O+, universal. Date: January 1930...”
As his head sank into the snow, along with the two frozen climbers, Diego understood the reason for his certainty, the reason for his obsession with visiting the Andes, knowing that he would find himself again in the future, once more.
©bonzopoe, 2026.
Note 1: All images in this post were generated using Midjourney.
Note 2: I originally wrote this story in Spanish a few years ago. I have changed some data to adapt it to the English language.
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